We are Gerger (www.gerger.co), the creators of Formspider (www.theformspider.com), the Web 2.0 framework for Oracle PL/SQL developers. We are preparing a new version of our product and we would like to renew our product web site www.theformspider.com along with it.
Our product Formspider is for a specific group of developers namely, the Oracle PL/SQL developers. It's mainly used in mid to large size companies to build Budgeting, Accounting, Order Management, HR, ERP etc.. software.
Current Web site was done by us a year and a half ago. It's nice but building web sites is not our focus. The site is also showing its age.
Formspider impresses our users with its simple and elegant design. It is perceived as an unusually high quality, very innovative product built with care and attention to detail. We would like our new web site reflect these facts.
We want a simple yet beautiful design in our web site. Readable large fonts, excellent copyright, gorgeous pictures, icons and screen shots should provide a enjoyable experience to the visitor. We don't want run of the mill, stock photos, icons and text anywhere on the site. Each page needs to be individually crafted and be of excellent quality.
The entire goal of the web site is to reflect the high quality of our product.
Our favorite product, company web sites are www.apple.com (you should have seen this coming at this point :-) ) and http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/
We've been struggling to find a freelancer or a team that can get this done. I thought of asking you on HN hoping that you can help.
Yes I noticed too. :-). Hope all is well with PlaceChallenge. I looked your work. Quite nice. Did you make any other product web sites other than PlaceChallenge web site?
Hey the author again. :-). It is true that in the article, I did not explain why I think that the era of A.I. started on October 4th. The article starts with the assertion that it has begun and moves on from there. I guess more than anything, the article is a call for action. I wanted the discussion to start and it did.
If I can present my chain of thoughts leading up to my decision in an interesting way I may write another article called "Why I think Siri is the Next Big Thing".
But here is my chain of thought for the curious mind in a very crude way:
What I did was to observe the moves of Apple and try to figure out their strategy. I put together the information that is available on the Internet. I connected the dots.
I knew Apple bought Siri for about $200 mil. I knew about Siri's history. You don't buy voice recognition software for this price. I watched the Mossberg-Jobs interview where Mossberg keeps insisting that Siri is in the search area and Jobs keep correcting him saying no Siri is in the A.I. area. I watched how the critical question "What are you going to do with it?" got lost during the conversation. When Mossberg said that the iPad is great for consumption but not for creation, it was very clear that Jobs did not see it like that at all. I also watched some Apple videos from late 80's which depicts a professor talking to his computer and getting his daily business done. It seemed to me that they had this vision all along and now they were implementing it.
Then I realized how iCloud fits in to this all. With the introduction of Siri it was clear to me that the next frontier the competition is moving to is A.I. Apple is going all in. IBM is pushing hard. Apparently, Google is baking some stuff.
While I was thinking about all these and trying to find its meaning, the interview between Fred Wilson and Carlota Perez helped me to put it all in context.
I think this is the time to invest in A.I. If a VC expects huge returns from his investment in 5-7 years, I think A.I. is the right way to go. If an entrepreneur wants to do something amazing, I think A.I. is the right way to go. My speculation is in 1-2 years this is going to be all we talk about.
I think A.I. is where the puck is going now. I might be wrong, I might be right. We will know soon enough.
I have thoughts on the particular question you asked too. But I cannot cram every bit Of thought I have to one blog post. It would make a terrible article. This article makes a prediction baldly. It asserts a threshold in A.I. is crossed and it's implications will be big. Diverging into startup funding in this area would just not fit in well. That deserves its own post. :-)
Hi Author here. Thank your for the harsh words. I guess I gotto take it to the chin.
Please allow me explain my point in another way. I think Siri is to A.I. what Apple II is to computers. Does this analogy explain what I am trying to tell better?
No, no and god no. Siri is not voice recognition. It is not even in the same universe as the voice control in Android.
And yes of course A.I. will use one or more search engines to look information up. But Google might not necessarily be one of them and consumers will not care two cents as long A.I. gets the job done. My point it that A.I. will fly over Google's moat unless it is Google's A.I.
Hi, Author here. I think you make an excellent point. I think the revolution will start from small things where it is OK to make an error. Stuff like Siri does. Then it will move on to productivity tools or the like...where it is still OK to make a mistake. And A.I. will improve really fast, like the PC has improved. I think in 5-10 years we won't believe what we have accomplished. I think Siri crosses an important threshold.
Didn't know about Google. They might be working on something but I don't know of any production use of their A.I. software.
Yes, seriously. Siri is not voice recognition. Siri is not restaurant recommendation. Siri is A.I. I speculate that Apple is on the verge of making A.I. commonly available. I am sure you can imagine the possibilities. I speculate that this will change our lives as much as Internet has. In a not so distant future, we will look at the day Siri was announced as the moment in history it all began.